“The ward relies heavily on health care assistants, who are poorly trained and lacking in the skills needed. Their priority should be to meet basic needs instead the most vulnerable patients are left hungry, dirty and often in pain.”
“Meal trays were often brought and left without any interaction, trays were then returned unopened as the poor soul didn’t know the food had been served. Others needing nourishment were too ill to reach their food and it was returned uneaten.”
“…elderly confused men wandered the ward sometimes aggressively but mostly looking for care”
The quotes above are taken from letters on the Cure The NHS website run by patients and relatives of those who went to Mid-Staffordshire NHS Foundation Trust for treatment . They only tell a fraction of the story. Between 2005 and 2008 between 400 and 1,200 more patients died than would have been expected in the hospital. Many others were left in beds covered with human waste. The shocking thing about that figure is that the enquiry into the catastrophe cannot be any more precise than a margin of error of 800 patient deaths. All this in a rich county in the 21st century.
New Labour’s Health Secretary Andy Burnham says “this was ultimately a local failure.” That’s just not true. Rather than hold a public enquiry as relatives have been demanding he opted for a private investigation. Yet even that was obliged to find the finance target driven culture with which New Labour has infected the public sector responsible. In order to get trust status “managers were focused on cost cutting, hitting targets”. Patient care and patient outcomes weighed much less heavily in the balance than saving money. Several hundred people paid with their lives for this.
That sort of target setting is always accompanied by fear, lying and bullying. People fear that if they don’t meet their targets they will be sacked so they lie. Managers bully them into trying to achieve unrealistic or meaningless benchmarks. The report says “there was an atmosphere of fear and bullying ". This is common across the public sector and will get worse when the cuts come in the next few months. What’s horrific is that doctors or unions appeared to be powerless in front of this finance powered juggernaut.
Astonishingly this dysfunctional hell hole was awarded the top rating achievable for British hospitals, a status which attracted extra funding. It was able to do this not just because of the neo-liberal internal regime New Labour has made mandatory. Would this disaster have happened if the unions had been able to stand up to their management and if hospital users and staff were responsible for setting the priorities?
Probably not.
ADVERT
BMA London Regional Council
Open meeting on the threats to the NHS in London
7-9 pm, 25th February 2010
The Great Hall, BMA House, Tavistock Square, London
This meeting aims to:
- Discuss the report "London on the Brink"
- Give an opportunity to share information about the changes proposed across the capital
- Enable BMA members to meet with other NHS Unions and NHS Campaigners to widen the BMA "Look after our NHS" campaign
Liam redux 
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